Hill finds fault despite victory
PA Sport
October 21, 2007
Bristol secured maximum points as they ran in five tries to beat Leeds 39-13 at the Memorial Stadium. But head coach Richard Hill was far from pleased with his side's first-half performance in the Guinness Premiership clash. ``We have not been playing well at all for five matches and we didn't play well in the first 40 minutes,'' said Hill. ``But thankfully we started to come somewhere near our form in the second half but it was still pretty frustrating to watch the first 40. We still didn't click as well as we should have done. ``There are signs there, at long last, that the players are coming out of this run of bad form. ``We scored some tries in the end but we probably butchered three or four as well, there is still a lot to work on. ``It would have been interesting if Leeds had kicked their first-half penalties because that would have put us under considerable pressure. Instead of having that tiny cushion it could have been 13-12 which it should have been. ``We were just that little bit lucky and it enabled us to relax a little at 13-3 and not feel so pressurised coming out for the second half.'' Bristol fly-half Jason Strange set a new club record with his 12-point tally taking him past the 637 set by Mark Tainton. Leeds had skipper Stuart Hooper yellow carded 10 minutes into the second half for pulling down the maul and Bristol capitalised on his absence by scoring two converted tries. Hill added: ``At half time it didn't look as though we would get the try-scoring bonus point and we were just talking about getting the win really. But the sin-binning made the difference and broke the back of them. ``It shows what you can do when you get quality lineout possession because that is the first time that we had it. ``When you have confidence in your full-back, your lineout thrower and your goal kicker it just helps to steady the team. When Jason [Strange] puts the ball on the tee it normally goes over. ``He never gets flustered, nothing gets to him.'' Leeds have just one win to their name this season and director of rugby Stuart Lancaster said: ``At half time we were disappointed with certain aspects of our game but being 13-3 down we felt that we were still in the game. ``It was important for us to start the second half well and we did with the first score. The sin-binning and the points we conceded during that period affected our game, we tended to play too much catch-up rugby about that time. ``Bristol played exceptionally well, when they had the opportunities they took them and as a consequence the scoreline reflected it. ``We certainly didn't underestimate Bristol and the way they dealt with coming up to the Premiership from National One. If anything we would look to emulate them. ``We go into every game believing we could win. We need to get more consistency across the board and back up that performance against Worcester a week ago. ``We had fixed some aspects from that game but not others so it is a case of putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together.'' |
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